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Monthly Archives: February 2017

Some Argentinian ladies took my photo while hiking in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina.

After deciding to pass on vagabonding down Chile’s Carretera Austral in the interest of time, I found my way to the Argentine border via bus, ferry, and a 9 mile (15km) road walk.

There are two buses per night from Los Antiguos, Argentina to the “national trekking capital” and tourist magnet of El Chaltén. One leaves after midnight for the ten hour ride, but I bought passage on the much more reasonable 8 o’clock departure.

The Chilean border station between Chile Chico and Los Antiguos, Argentina.

After a few days waiting out storms and trying to figure out my plan in Coyhaique, where there are few foreigners, it was a bit of a (welcome) shock to be speaking English with other westerners. I’ve admittedly been tired of meeting endless parades of 19 year old university students, and enjoyed the opportunity to talk with people in their mid to late 20s. We just have a lot more in common.

While waiting for the bus at the minuscule terminal, we swapped travel stories. Many of us were departing the Carretera Austral because of a lack of transportation options. I heard stories of being trapped in villages for two or three days trying to hitch a ride out of town, which made me think I made a good choice with my limited time left in Patagonia. I did have over three weeks until I meet my father in El Calafate, but I wanted to hit up the Fitz Roy Range, Tierra del Fuego, and Torres del Paine National Park beforehand. The Argentine side of Patagonia is much drier than its Chilean counterpart, which is often verdant rainforest. Ruta 40, Argentina’s relatively famous Patagonian Highway, dips in and out of impressive views of the snowcapped Andes while traversing the flat, desert-like and deserted steppe. Many of the towns, spread far apart, have dozens of sheep per person.

Usually South American long distance buses are surprisingly comfortable, but this bus seemed to be the exception. Being short had the advantage that I was able to curl up on the seats on the mostly empty bus, with no locals onboard, but the bumpy gravel road wasn’t terribly conducive to sleep.

The first day was fairly cloudy, but it cleared up in the days afterwards (though it rained almost every night).

At 6am the lights came on. “El Chaltén!” the driver yelled, running out to dump all our bags on the sidewalk of the terminal. We groggily made our way out, and I collected my bag and then put in my contacts on the pavement. After half an hour, with the sun just starting to peak up above the horizon, the terminal was opened and the lovely restrooms were finally in reach. They even had toilet paper, a rare luxury in South America. I stocked up my supply and then approached the info desk to inquire about hiking maps.

“Just take a photo of it,” the attendant said without looking up from her phone. The map she pointed to seemed nice, and I wanted a physical copy, but I figured with how popular and developed this place was rumored to be that I’d be fine.

El Chaltén has a permanent population of only around 500 or so, and was founded in part as a claim against Chile during 20th century border disputes. Nowadays it’s a major tourist draw, with a labyrinth of trails remarkably well set up to facilitate both day hikes and longer multi-day treks.

Laguna Torre on my second day, after the sky cleared up. Definitely worth waiting for this view of Mt. Fitz Roy.

I opted to connect all the day hikes plus a more remote area to form a four night trek at the base of the Fitz Roy Range, mostly in Los Glaciares National Park (further to the south in the same park is the Perito Moreno Glacier outside of El Calafate, another major attraction that I’ll be visiting with my father in late March). Park entrance is free, the trails are easy and well maintained, and camping inside the park is at no cost. The camping areas, often just a sheltered forested area with a well maintained pit toilet, were often noisy at night. Typical for Argentina, and much to the chagrin of the rest of us, Argentinians would lug stereos up the trails and blast music until late at night.

The trail was very well marked, well trodden, and well maintained.

Another stunning view of Mt. Fitz Roy. I really lucked out on weather, which is notoriously poor here.

I stopped by a lake to admire the view.

The wind was often fairly strong in the night and it usually rained at least a couple hours between dusk and dawn. But the sky cleared up each frigid morning, and I was lucky enough to see some of the most incredible alpine vistas. Large slabs of granite helped my tent stay up during the storms.

Detouring to Lago Eléctrico.

View of Mt. Fitz Roy from a ridge overlooking Laguna de los Tres.

View from Laguna de los Tres.

While at Laguna de los Tres I became engrossed in a podcast about a woman who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, followed by the Continental Divide and Appalachian Trails. The same order I’ve been doing the trails. While listening and admiring the view a woman came up and told me I shouldn’t jump off the edge. Which I wasn’t planning on doing, but the sentiment was nice.

Had to take a road 9 miles to finish my hike, but the views were worth it and there was little traffic.

The turnoff before the bridge to Lago Eléctrico.

Panorama of a hike on private land outside the park.

While camped at a tranquil, private campground outside the park near Lago Eléctrico I took a couple hours to walk to the nearby Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Popular with climbers, it’s one of the windiest places in the world. I walked until I could see the edge of the massive glacier and can attest that it truly is quite windy, even off the ice.

Now, off the trail, I’m luxuriating in a tea parlor in Punta Arenas, on the Straits of Magellan. Tomorrow I’ve got a bus ticket to Ushuaia, in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego: el fin del mundo (the end of the Earth).

“If you’re looking for a place to camp in Coyhaique, just go to the graveyard! That’s what we did. It’s free,” a young University of Santiago student gaily told me while having me pose for a ridiculous photo on the boat.

Crossing Lake Buenos Aires, the second largest in South America, from Chile Chico to Puerto Ibáñez.

“It’s right by the river, perfect location,” she added. “The dead won’t care. I loved skiing in Colorado.” Confused, intrigued, and a little weirded out, I thanked her and left to seek refuge from the wind in the cabin.

My plans for making my way south through Patagonia had fallen apart pretty quickly, which seems to be a fairly common theme on all my travels of more than three days.
Almost out of cash and sunlight at the end of my trans-Andes trek from Argentina to Chile, I hopped in a van whose driver promised to drop me off an hour down the road in exchange for the equivalent of about $2. According to my maps, this town just an hour from the tourist hordes in picturesque Puerto Varas was home to ATMs and supermarkets.

“No, the closest ATM is in Puerto Varas. We have a Neighbor Box, though,” the owner of the shack that was the ‘supermarket’ told me.

What the hell? I asked, in more polite terms.

“A Neighbor Box is exactly what it sounds like,” the cashier told me with a verbal eye roll. “And no, you can’t use it to get cash.”

Having finally found a campground that took credit cards, I paid the $9 and set up my tent in the rain. Then the campsite next to mine decided to have a dinner party with music until 1:30am, and I used the last of my cell phone’s power and the unreliable wifi to book an Airbnb room for the next night. Totally worth the $27.

Also with the last dying embers of my 3.5 year old phone’s dysfunctional battery I made plans to meet up with my cousin, who by pure coincidence was in the same part of Chile at the same time.

In Puerto Varas, Chile with my cousin. We asked some random stranger to photograph us.

Ready to get away from the north, I bought a bus ticket to the working class rainforest island of Chiloé and reserved a few more Airbnbs (one of which involved an elderly technologically retarded woman who still wasn’t really sure what Airbnb was, and asked “young gringo, can you help me with my online banking?”; the perils of Airbnbs with no reviews).

Day hike in the thick vegetation of Chiloé National Park.

On the ferry to Chiloé Island.

Loading the boat for the 6am departure back to the mainland.

The next bus south wasn’t leaving for another few days (a common theme on the Carretera Austral), and hitching seemed difficult with lots of competition. So, after 24 hours in Chaitén without a whole lot to do, I made my way across the border to Argentina’s Esquel, gateway to Los Alerces National Park.

A panorama from the trail in Los Alerces National Park, Argentina.

The abandoned Refugio Lago Kruger, my home for the night. I wouldn’t have stayed if it weren’t for a couple other Argentines also sharing the space. It was creepy, but I liked having the whole second floor to myself. The other two saw a puma walk outside the window the next day.

I finished the hike in only 2 days, and hoped to do some day hikes on my third day. Unfortunately, a fire had closed the trails so I rinsed my clothes and hung out on the beach.

From Esquel I headed south on Argentina’s Route 40, popularized by author Bruce Chatwin (and home to much better connections than the Chilean side). After 9 hours passing through the dry Patagonian steppe, with the snow capped Andes rising to the west, I arrived in the border town of Los Antiguos.

Los Antiguos is a phenomenal little one street town solely because its campground is blissfully quiet. No screaming locals blasting music until 4am is a godsend down here. I shared the hiker campsite with a German couple and a Japanese guy who was biking from Canada to Tierra del Fuego. The Germans were also coming from Los Alerces National Park, and reminisced about being called nazis in the park campground. The Argentinian people are so charming, and remind me a lot of Israelis.

Is this Argentine candy bar named after the white supremacist pariah state in post-colonial Africa? Could be.

There’s no bus service across the border to Chile Chico anymore, so with a combination of hiking and hitchhiking I was able to painlessly cross into Chile. Even walking 7 or 8 miles, I got to town at about the same time as those who hitched the whole way.

From the Futaleufú/Esquel border crossing, which was beautiful.

I was able to nab one of the last tickets on the boat across Lake Buenos Aires to Puerto Ibáñez, from where there are vans to Coyhaique on the Carretera Austral. Two others, from France and Belgium, and I arrived late and went to the aforementioned cemetery-side campsite. There was nobody there except a dog that was weirdly protective of us and growled at a couple passing by who asked for rolling paper.

I have a ridiculous number of pages in my passport dedicated to stamps from Argentina and Chile.

Coyhaique, with a population of around 40k, is easily the largest city in the region. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have the time to take the Carretera Austral all the way to its terminus and hike El Chaltén in Argentina. Rather, after a very frustrating day having spent six or so hours trying to figure out transportation info, I checked the weather forecast and opted to just book it to the Fitz Roy Range in Argentina and disappear into the mountains for four days. I’ve forgotten what sunshine and warmth feels like, but the weather prediction says I should get a taste of those this week in El Chaltén on the other side of the Andes!

Unlike the trail I’ve just done, where you can camp almost anywhere, you’re only allowed to spend the night by the hut halfway to the Chilean border. I won’t have enough time after that to get to the border, so I’m…free! I only have a few hours of walking today, and I won’t make the boat in time the next day, so my schedule is now very relaxed.

While I’m enjoying the January sun, a dog comes up and abruptly licks my face. It goes rigid and stares off into the woods, where a herd of horses runs out of the woods and towards me. I immediately stand up and try to get away, but the dogs and gaucho shepherding them keep them away from me.

On the way to the hut at Paso de las Nubes (Cloud Pass).

The trail meanders along a stream for a while, and it’s weird seeing other people on the trail. Only a few are out here, but this trail is definitely more popular than the last one. We ascend up and up and up to the Paso de las Nubes (Cloud Pass), with the Rocca Hut and an expansive view of glaciated Mount Tronador.

For $9, you can camp outside the hut and use all the facilities. The hut is heated, powered, and has running water with real toilets! It’s heavenly. A high school girl gets really excited at the opportunity to practice English with a real live native speaker, and we chat for a while while staring out the window at the glaciers and waterfalls. I get a little bored, missing the thru hiking lifestyle of camping anywhere and running yourself into exhaustion each day.

I don’t sleep well that night. I don’t think I drank enough water in the evening, and I get very irritable while dehydrated. I fret over everything that has and could go wrong, which isn’t exactly conducive to good sleep.

Day 4

The next morning I berate myself, as always, for worrying during the night about things that have sensible solutions.

Very different from the high and dry passes in Argentina.

From the hut I descend steeply to the valley floor, and it’s evident I’m in a rainforest now. I usually listen to music or podcasts while I walk, a habit I picked up on my 2600 mile Mexico to Canada hike in 2015. It helps break up the monotony and lets my mind wander. I eschew my earbuds now in favor of listening to the sounds of the rainforest, lost in my own little world. I’m damp, sweaty, and caked in mud with a bad odor but I wouldn’t trade this for anything else.

At Puerto Frías the trail ends at a lake. There are just two buildings there: Argentine customs and what I think is a national park office. The border guard post is empty, but after a few minutes I see a boat approaching on the lake. A bunch of tourists pile out on their way to Chile by bus, led by the border guards.

“Can I help you?” Inquires an older woman.

“I’m walking from Argentina to Chile, and I need an exit stamp,” I reply. She looks at first like she doesn’t believe me, but after looking at my pack and how disheveled I am she seems to accept it.

“It’s a long walk from Pampa Linda!”

“I actually started in Colonia Suiza, just outside of Bariloche,” I correct her, not sure if it’s necessary for their records. My hike is much longer than what they originally thought. She and the border guards obviously think I’m a crazy gringo, but they put me first in line and within seconds I’m stamped out of Argentina.

The view as I climb out of Argentina.

I drop off my hiking registration at the national park office, which seems unsure what to do with it. Hopefully they don’t call a search and rescue on me. They take my passport to look for my exit stamp, but are unable to find it amidst the cyrillic scribbles from obscure Eastern European border crossings. I show them my pages of Argentina and Chile stamps and they wish me luck.

Welcome to Chile!

It’s only 40 minutes climbing to the Chilean border, but 18 miles/30km to the border station at Peulla. Leaving around noon, I know I won’t be able to make the 4:30pm daily boat across Lago Todos los Santos back to the Chilean road system. The road from Puerto Frías in Argentina to Lago Todos los Santos in Chile just goes from lake to lake. There’s no access to the outside world and nothing else in between, except for a few farms just outside the Chilean border post. Thus, the only vehicles there are a bus that ferries tourists from lake to lake, border guards, and a guy in a truck transporting goods that I see every few hours.

I stop around 7pm on a rocky platform overlooking a river, but get an inexplicable vibe of uneasiness and opt to keep on going. After less than an hour I find a perfect campsite, but something smells weird…and then I notice the rotting corpse of what might have once been a cow or horse. Yeah, let’s not deal with pumas tonight, I think to myself. Going 20 more minutes down the flat gravel road I walk into the thick rainforest, where the undergrowth seems to be less dense than before, and set up my tent out of sight of the road. Which, because it’s a rainforest, is less than 10 meters away.

Day 5

Last night’s sleep was amazingly restful, and I immediately start walking. Based on the GPS on my phone, I’m less than a couple hours from the border station.

Mount Tronador and the sign for the border police. I went and talked to an officer, a very friendly grandfatherly old man, just to let them know I was in the area. He didn’t seem too concerned.

There aren’t even any aggressive dogs trying to stop me from trespassing on their territory, and it’s an easy couple of hours to the border station just outside town.

Getting closer to town.

“Got any fresh fruit or animal products?” I show him my food back to make sure I’m following Chile’s strict importation guidelines meant to protect their environment.

“You sure that’s it?” Oh god they’re going to search through my entire bag. I’m not hiding anything, but all my stuff is so filthy and it’ll take a while.

“Okay, I’ll take your word on it,” and then he gives me my entry stamp and Chilean tourist visa slip, which I have to save until I leave the country. Every time you cross between Chile and Argentina you’re given a new 90 day visa, so I don’t have any issues staying here for six months like I did in the European Union.

Lago Todos los Santos, the end of the hike and departure point for the ferry to the Chilean road system.

I found this in Puerto Montt, a Chilean working class town I visited just to catch the bus to Argentina. I have no idea what it is, but it scared me a little.

Day 0

Argentina’s Nahuel Huapi National Park came up next on my list, with my plans for hiking further north in Chile having been dashed by the fires. It was getting too hot there, anyways. Time to go to cooler altitudes and/or latitudes.

The park is known for mountain passes with amazing vistas, glaciers, and the striking Mount Tronador on the Chilean border. The Nahuel Huapi Traverse is probably the most popular route, hopping from valley to valley and hut to hut, but I opted for a less frequented (and supposedly much more rugged) trail: Colonia Suiza to Pampa Linda, then walking over the Paso de las Nubes to Chile and taking a two hour ferry across a lake to the road.

Mount Tronador as seen from a mountain pass on the trail.

After a Bariloche steak dinner ($11 in total, which seemed super expensive, but I now realize the same thing would be much more in the US), I stopped by the Club Andino to get some more info.

Trailhead at Colonia Suiza. It took me a little less than 48 hours to get to Pampa Linda.

“You want a map?? Okay…but it’ll cost $6.” Um, yes I do want a map and that’s totally a reasonable price. Call me old fashioned, but I tend to like to know where I am and where I’m going. I had the route’s GPS coordinates in my phone, but you can’t rely on electronics.

While waiting for the bus to the trailhead, which never came, I gave up and decided to just sleep in a campground 4km from town. It was getting late, and I could try again the next day. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep with all the noise of a campground, but the next thing I knew I had woken up from a 10 hour slumber.

Day 1

It turns out the info on the Bariloche website for getting to Colonia Suiza is incorrect. What a surprise from a government website! You have to take bus number 20, which leaves every 20 minutes, to the roundabout at kilometer 18. Tell the driver you’re heading to Colonia Suiza and he’ll charge you for the whole trip, which should cost under $2 and is cheaper than paying separately. He’ll then announce when you should get off, after which you transfer to the number 10. The latter leaves every hour on the half hour from the roundabout.

Colonia Suiza is just a collection of campgrounds and little shacks selling meals at the end of a dirt road. The bus dropped me off less than a 10 minute walk to the trailhead, where I lounged for a while and had breakfast.

Ambling up through the gentle grade of the forest I ran into a young Argentinian couple I’d chatted a while with on my first hike a few weeks ago near El Bolsón, a few hours south of here. They’d spent the night at the hut just ahead of me, which seems to be a popular overnight trip.

The red Refugio Italia as viewed from the trail.

There was a sign saying to register at the hut, but when I went there nobody seemed interested so I just continued. After the hut the number of people dropped dramatically, and the route involved a lot of scrambling up and down rock faces with ropes. Not that easy with a full pack! The trail went up steeply to passes and then plunged back down below the tree line to valleys with forested trails overgrown with trees, and towards the end of the day I found it dead ended into the lake. I walked in the shallow water on the lake’s edge to rejoin the trail, after which I dried my soaked shoes and socks in the dying sun and cooked on my tiny butane canister stove.

The trail just ends at the lake, so I walked in the shallow water on the edge.

Back in Iceland I would pack out hotdogs for my first night of camping. Hotdogs in Iceland are cheap and ubiquitous, and the tradition seems to have followed me to Patagonia. It’s a nice treat for the first night, and I just boil them for five minutes. After eating crackers all day it’s a delicacy.

The pass loomed above me. It’s to the west, so once I get up there I would have more sunlight descending, I thought to myself. I pack up all my things from dinner and hike on.

The trail is difficult to follow, but with the map and GPS file on my phone I’m able to manage it. It’s steep, but once I get above the marshy tree line I can see the pass and make my own way.

At the top I’m tired, and not entirely sure the route down. The wind isn’t that strong nor is it that cold, so I opt to camp right on the pass. The ground isn’t firm enough for my tent stakes to stay down, so I weigh them with rocks and fall asleep.

Day 2

At 3am I jolt awake, disoriented and cocooned in fabric. There are creatures jumping over me, and they trapped me in a sack! my panicked mind screams. When I come to my senses I realize my tent has collapsed in a windstorm, and no kidnapping bears are dancing over me. I can’t find all the tent stakes, which scattered when my tent fell down, and decide to just wrap myself back up in the tent and go back to sleep. I can find the stakes in the morning, when it’s light and I have my contacts in. It starts to rain, but I’m too tired to care.

I awake at 8am, later than I’d like. It’s cold, but my water thankfully hasn’t frozen. After putting my contacts in I find the last of my tent stakes within 15 seconds. Putting on all my layers, with socks over my hands to act as gloves, I hurriedly pack up all my stuff and hustle down the pass.

The route isn’t well marked, and I realize I have to reach into my pack to get my phone. But it’ll take a minute to power on, and I’m COLD and it’s WINDY. FUCK THIS TRAIL, AND FUCK ARGENTINA! I scream. I realize that won’t help, so I get out my phone and easily find the route.

Looking down into the valley.

It leads across yet another pass, not into the valley that I had thought. After a couple hours of hiking I pull out my sleeping bag by a stream and crawl inside while I yard sale all my gear on the rocks to dry. Filtering water, I see two people below me in their campsite. I don’t know if they can see me, but I watch them for a while. Just to make sure they’re okay. Soon they’re up heading towards the next pass.

Selfie over the abyss.

I catch them fairly quickly. They’re from American Samoa, down in Patagonia for two months. We talk for a while about their hikes, and I get more info about the best way to head south. I’m meeting my cousin in Argentina on February 6th and 7th, and after that I’m taking five weeks to go down to Tierra del Fuego. But there’s so much to see and hike along the way.

The trail goes up there…somewhere.

They get cold and I head on, climbing over and descending the next pass. It’s seemingly near vertical, and going down takes a long time while I try not to contemplate the vertiginous abyss below me. I get lost at the bottom, but after a while find my way back to the route.

At a lake before the next climb I finish my book, Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy. It’s about the lives of defectors from North Korea who now live in South Korea, and the difficult adjustments they face. I spend most of my breaks reading, and in town usually load up lots of new books onto my kindle.

Looking back from where I came.

These passes have some pretty nice views.

The lake is so blue!

Ascending this next time is easy, because it’s up a slab of granite that hasn’t eroded as much as the other slopes. I’m able to run up this one, then enjoy the vistas at the top. *My last ascent!* I excitedly realize as I look at the elevation profile for the next part of the hike. It’s all downhill from here.

Back below the tree line I meander through forests, and the trail seems to be better maintained. There are some people by the lake, but my misanthropy takes control and I decide to keep going. I quickly cook a ramen dinner and am back on the route, camping just out of sight of the trail. I could’ve continued to Pampa Linda, but I’d have to camp in a campground. There will be lots of people and noise, so the forest is a much better place.

Getting closer and closer to Mount Tronador.

Leaving the higher passes to head back down to the green valley.

Day 3

In the morning I’m woken up by the screaming of cows, which is a little strange. I don’t want to get up because it’s cold, but I have to go to the bathroom. The latter ends up winning and I put on all my layers, rush out, then jump back into my -12C sleeping bag.

Eventually, at 8am, I muster up the courage to hit the trail. My latest start on the PCT from camping on trail was 8am, which seemed ungodly late. I just couldn’t get myself out of my tent that day, and instead spent a couple hours reading some ridiculously awful gay Amish romance novel that was circulating the hiker community.

Out here, 8am is ungodly early for most people. Then again, I’m pretty atypical in that I hike more than 2 hours a day. I much prefer getting up early and walking until sunset. If I’m not tired out from walking all day, then I don’t sleep as well. Old PCT habits die hard.

After a very steep descent the trail levels off, and then crosses a river. Knowing my shoes and socks will dry fast in the sun, I just walk across it like normal. In Iceland I did the same thing during a storm, which made German hikers yell at me to take off my pants first (still not really sure what that was about).

This river was much more peaceful (read: I haven’t seen a single human yet today), and I meander on over to the ranger office in Pampa Linda. There’s really nothing there besides the office and a campground, and after checking in with the ranger I lay all my stuff out to dry in the sun.

“Nope. Sorry, kid, but with all the forest fires raging in these regiones, all trails are closed.”

Chile is divided into regiones, their version of states or provinces. They’re numbered from 1 to 15, and at the Santiago bus terminal you better know your region’s number to get in the right ticket line!

Damnit. Oh well, better to find this out now than die in a raging fire.

“Since you hitchhiked here-”

“I took the bus, just asked the driver to let me off on the highway.” He gave me a disbelieving look.

“Well, you won’t be able to get back that way.”

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. When somebody tells me I can’t do something, I immediately become like a customer I had the pleasure of encountering when I worked in the hotels of Yellowstone. After informing him I wouldn’t let him into random rooms without verifying they were his, he told me, “Fuck you freak, I’m gonna climb in through the window!” Inspirational words to live by.

I headed back to the highway, finding a makeshift bus stop with shade. Within 5 minutes I was able to flag down a bus.

“You going to Temuco?” I asked the attendant. He nodded. I put my bag in storage and handed him $6 for the two hour ride.

After spending the past two nights hardly able to sleep camped out in the back of a noisy hostel, I decided to get a hotel room. If I wanted to save money I would’ve just stayed home, I tell myself. As the bus drove in and out of signal in the windy mountain roads, I used my phone to reserve a room close to the bus terminals. At less than $28, ’twas well worth it. Not as much character as one Ethiopian hotel room near the Eritrean border, which had a bird nesting in the bathroom, but still a nice place to plan my next move.

While waiting forever to pay (I ended up leaving to get a haircut and coming back later), an older woman asked me what I was doing in this part of the world. With Chile’s heavily native population I stand out with my green eyes, pale skin, and hair reddened by so much time in the December/January summer sun. Looking at me, everyone can tell I’m a foreigner.

“I’ve lived here my entire life and never seen anything like this! Usually at this time it’s rainy and cool, but this might be the hottest and driest summer in history. All those fires here, and those six men dead…” If I had looked at a local newspaper in the past week I would’ve known all this.

It’s not quite as dry as Ethiopia in the dry season, like above at the Bati camel market, but not too far off either.

Temuco is a working class town of about a quarter million well off the tourist circuit, and it was heavenly to get to actually sleep without degenerates screaming by my head all night. It was also nice not being exhausted for my 5 hour bus ride the next day to seaside Puerto Montt, another blue collar town. I stayed in an Airbnb solo for the first time (sleeping in a stranger’s spare bedroom was surprisingly nice, will have to do that again) and transferred to Argentina’s Bariloche.

“Been to Argentina before?” The bored-looking border officer asked me. I just said yes and declined to mention it was my third time. Crossing between the two countries is pretty easy, and immigration always takes place amidst beautiful Andean alpine scenery.